


Clint Barton is Bad at Tests

by jenny_wren



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:17:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5555657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_wren/pseuds/jenny_wren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink meme - Clint vs SHIELD torture training. Future Clint/Coulson mildly implied</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“So,” said Nick. “Your boy’s scheduled for resistance training next week.”

His best friend paused in gathering up his papers, “My objection to this has been clearly stated. And Clint Barton is not my boy.”

He laughed, “Cheese, you called in three separate favors to get him, he’s definitely yours. And what I want to know is, do you think he’ll beat your record?”

“No,” said Phil.

Long practice kept the surprise off his face at the certainty in Phil’s voice. There was no doubt at all, which meant Nick was missing something.

“They’ve already agreed to extend the maximum length of test to six weeks,” he said, in case Phil was thinking there was a technicality at work.

That had been agreed a long time ago, when Fury’s boy sat through the full month of standard sleep deprivation, stress postures, straight-up water boarding and anything else the increasingly desperate joint psych-security team could throw at him along with their barrage of psychological trickery – and through the whole thing looked nothing so much as bored. 

Phil was good at looking bored. 

He looked bored now as he shrugged his shoulders, “My objections to that are also on record. And it’s irrelevant.”

“So tell me what is relevant?”

“I am much, much better at tests than Barton.” It was said unboastfully, just an inconvertible statement of fact as Phil scooped up his pile of files, “If that’s all, sir.”

Nick nodded him away.

 

Three days later they met again and as Phil was packing away his stuff, Nick said,

“I’m told I need to invoke SHIELD non-standard reg 419.”

Phil almost smiled, “I wondered if anybody would tell you.” He pulled an envelope of cash out his briefcase. “The betting has become rather outrageous.”

Non-standard reg 419 stated that if there were monetary bets of over a thousand dollars on a single event, all cash was to be handed to the Director to hold and he would adjudicate. If this wasn’t done, all bets were null and void; and if there was any suspicion the contest was rigged, both parties’ cash would be forfeit and pass to the Widows and Orphans Fund. The exact circumstances that led to non-standard reg 419 were heavily redacted and only known to those actually involved. That was true of all the events that led to the creation of the non-standard regs.

“Only to be expected. What I find interesting is that you are currently two and a half grand in the hole for Barton surpassing all previous contenders, when you don’t actually believe he’ll beat your record.”

“Three thousand, eight hundred and fifty to be exact. And do you think I would do anything other than publicly back my boy?”

“I thought he wasn’t your boy.”

Phil smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Want to make it an even four thousand?”

“And you honestly don’t think he’ll beat your record?” Nick was even more aware he was missing something. 

“If he does, I’ll double the money.”

“Alright then. Let’s make it four thousand.”

“Certainly, sir.” Phil’s smile grew wider. Some days Nick was acutely aware that his best friend was a very dangerous man.

 

Inevitably for a spy agency Phil’s offer got around in record time and all the cautiously wary agents (aka those who had worked with Phil before and knew something was up, even if they didn’t know what) came crawling out the woodwork and by the time they came for Barton, Phil was eight thousand, three hundred and twenty-five dollars in hock. Nick knew his friend could afford the loss (or he’d have put a stop to things no matter the sting to Phil’s pride) but it was going to hurt.

Nick still didn’t quite believe it was going to happen though; he was too used to the idea of Phil pulling rabbits out of hats as required. 

The idea that Phil was going to pull it off by slipping his boy inside information was however put to rest when Barton hospitalized six of the agents who tried to grab him. He fought with killing intent and it was painfully obvious he had no idea his assailants were technically friendlies. He’d also clearly been holding back in his hand to hand class, because Barton was vicious when he was fighting for his life. Medical weren’t entirely sure they’d be able to get Kloss’ knee functional again.

“I hate to say I told you so,” said Phil.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do. I feel bad for Kloss, and Barton will feel worse. It’s a stupid waste. I told them to put some real agents on Barton’s detail.”

The grab missions were also training for the baby agents who’d been grabbed themselves a year ago. (Nick was a big fan of two birds, one stone.) Being grabbed came early in a SHIELD agent’s training because you could train people to do better as a captive but the basic ability to cope, you either had it or you didn’t, and they might as well figure that out before they wasted the effort of training them up on other stuff. 

They started with a class of thirty, put them through two weeks basic, let them go for a night on the town, grabbed them, then two weeks later they had a class of twenty-five if they were lucky. They always lost between five and ten trainees to lack of ability to cope, not understanding why the exercise was necessary, and understanding why it was necessary but not wanting to work somewhere it was necessary (He respected the last lot and always made sure to settle them someplace safe like the FBI or NSA).

“It probably saved his life,” Nick offered, “because if he couldn’t handle himself in a training exercise that got real, Kloss’d have been dead less than month after graduation.”

Phil nodded slowly, “I’ll tell him,” he promised.

“Good.” Because Nick wasn’t losing the best asset to come his way since Phil to guilt. And coincidentally it was actually true. “Want to go have a looksee?”

“Give me a call tomorrow. Just before lunch.”

Personally Nick wouldn’t have any appetite after watching a friend being ground into the dirt but in many ways Phil was a tougher man than him.


	2. Chapter 2

As it happened, Nick was the one who was called just before lunch.

“Say again?” he demanded.

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded apologetic as they repeated, “Barton broke, sir.”

“That’s? What the hell is this?” That was ridiculous, loyal to SHIELD or not, Barton was too damn stubborn to give up so quickly.

“We need permission to release him.” Because depending on the circumstances the trainers might continue the exercise and monitor the trainee after the break, “But Agent Coulson is listed as his training officer and…”

And Agent Coulson was not precisely unbiased when it came to Trainee Barton.

“I’m on my way.” Nick put the phone down, remembered Phil’s request from the day before and picked it back up, “How did you know?”

“Hello to you too, Marcus,” said Phil, not even bothering to hide his smugness.

“How did you know?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Nick shook his head and headed down to the cells. This should be entertaining if nothing else.

 

The tiny monitoring room was crowded. All three senior training agents, the monitor on duty, and the two ‘prison guards’ were crammed in at one end, staring suspiciously at Phil who stood easily at the other end watching the screens projecting the inside of the trainee’s cells.

Phil looked up as Nick walked in,

“Hello sir. I’m sorry you’ve been bothered by this. They wouldn’t start the meeting until you’d arrived.”

Nick was worried for half a second, because Phil never needed anyone to backup his authority, then realized his friend thought he would want to be there and had deliberately let things go.

“Very well,” he folded his arms and glowered, “explain to me why I had to come down here to deal with a minor training issue.”

The trainers all shuffled nervously, before the deputy, Sutherland, stepped forward.

“Sir, Trainee Barton revealed all his security codes.”

“He cannot possibly have been pushed to his limits.” 

“No sir. He said, well sir, we didn’t even have chance to get started on the SHIELD has abandoned you story, he just said that SHIELD didn’t give two shits for him, so he couldn’t see any reason not to give us the codes.” Sutherland bristled all over with outrage,

“It is our recommendation that Barton’s training be terminated immediately.”

Behind Nick, Phil coughed gently.

“Agent Coulson,” said Nick. “Do you have anything to add?” Because Phil clearly did and if he didn’t stop being so smug about it, Nick was going to smack him.

“If you would glance at the time, sir.”

“It’s almost bang on twelve. It’s been less than forty-eight hours.”

“Yes sir. But if you recall the forty-eight hour window before SHIELD resets an agent’s codes is measured from last contact. For trainees that contact is measured from the last sign-in. Trainee Barton signs in between seven and seven-fifteen every morning on his way to breakfast.”

“Is this true?”

One of the agents in training jumped to a computer check.

“Yes sir,” said Phil. “A regular check-in assists in remembering to complete the check-in and assists in remembering when one has checked in on a particular day should it become an important consideration. For example in the event of capture by the enemy.”

“Stop quoting the briefing pack at me, Agent.”

“Yes sir.”

Phil was going to be completely insufferable after this.

“It’s true,” said the agent in training, “but how could Barton be sure forty-eight hours had passed? We’ve been mixing up their timing.”

“You can’t confuse a body in forty-eight hours,” Phil explained patiently. “If you’ve a reasonable body clock in the first place, you know when forty-eight hours has gone by. Barton had to get past seven am, and he gave them up just before lunch. He knew he was safe.”

“So why do we try and mess with their sense of time?”

“Because after forty-eight to seventy-two hours, you do start to lose sense of time if you can’t get sight of daylight. It’s one of the reasons they reset the codes after forty-eight hours, because in situations like this one, an agent will know when the danger-mark has passed. We might tell our trainees not to give up their codes but the whole point of this exercise is to make them understand that everybody cracks eventually and it’s better to allow a controlled flow of information before that happens.”

“You didn’t crack or give up your codes in your test.”

Nick had to try hard not to smile and the fluttery hero worship. Phil scowled at his admirer,

“I am much better at tests than Agent Barton, and that is an irrelevant consideration in the field.”

“But he said he didn’t care about SHIELD,” the Agent-in-training wailed.

Nick just managed to stop himself from rolling his eye.

“I think we can allow Trainee Barton some latitude in what he tells his interrogators,” Phil said gently.

“Huh.”

“So,” said Nick because he had to get out of there before he started shouting or laughing, “Barton’s given up some completely useless information, which, if used in a real situation by his kidnappers, would allow us to back track them and find him. I’m not seeing how this counts as a failure.”

Sutherland weighed back in, “As defined by the parameters of the test, giving up the security codes constitutes failure.”

“Yeah, I think we’re going to need to be rewriting that part. Keep going and call me again if something actually interesting happens.” 

He stalked away, Phil trailing meekly behind him.

“Sir, I did tell you I was much better at tests than Barton.”

“Shut up the fuck up Cheese.”

 

They called him again that afternoon.

“Oh good God.”

But the training supervisor sounded honestly concerned, so Nick rounded Phil up and headed on down.

The tiny room was even more crowded this time, the center of attention was Agent Rea who was a dainty little doll of a woman with porcelain white skin, long dark hair and pale blue eyes that were currently red and soggy with tears. She was normally safely tucked away in linguistics and coding so Nick’s first question was,

“Why the hell is Agent Rea here?”

“We brought her in to honey up Barton,” said Harvey.

Nick very carefully did not groan.

“We figured he might give it up to a fellow prisoner. And if not we could use her as a lever against him. And look what happened!” Harvey clicked the remote and the large play-back screen at the far end of the room lit up.

Three junior agents in training, dressed up in the bottle-green jumpsuits of the ‘enemy’ dragged a yelling, pleading Agent Rea into Barton’s cell, leaving her there with a cackle of laughter and a clang of the cell door. Rea blinked soggily at Barton, who jumped to his feet,

“Oh cool. Entertainment.” 

Nick would like to say that Rea put her defense training to good use but it was obvious, to him at least, that Barton was trying not to win. The guards came storming back before Barton had to do more than tug at her clothes a bit.

The real Rea sitting on the table in front of him sobbed as her screen counterpart was dragged from the cell. The other agents clustered around her huffing and hissing. 

“See,” snarled Harvey.

Nick glanced at Phil, who stood to one side, a pillar of calm unconcern, and heard him say under his breath,

“Good boy.”

Nick nodded slowly.

“Barton’s dangerous,” Harvey continued, “there’s no way you can keep him now.”

Phil snapped abruptly into furious, turning on Harvey with the speed of striking snake, “Of course Barton’s dangerous. That’s why we want him.”

Nick held up one hand to stop him before he gutted Harvey. Phil glared but subsided into watchfulness with a grumpy hunch of his shoulders. Nick turned to the other agents.

“Agent Harvey, why did you send Agent Rea into Barton’s cell?”

“I told you sir, to cozy up to Barton and see if he’d spill, and if not so we could use her as leverage against him.”

“And you don’t think Barton knew that?”

“Sir?”

“All Barton could know is that Rea was either one of his captors, in which case she was in no danger, or she was an innocent grabbed off the street, in which case the very last thing he could do was show an interest in her. Because otherwise you’d be using her for leverage and Barton couldn’t know Rea would only be screaming her head off for show. Given the circumstances he was doing the best he could to protect her.”

And Barton was going to be furious when he found out about it. At this rate they’d have him quitting before he’d even really started.

The other trainees didn’t like it but they couldn’t fault the logic of it and settled into sulky grumbling.

“Now,” Nick let an edge slide into his voice, “somebody better explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to shove a non-combatant into a live exercise.”

They all cringed on cue.


	3. Chapter 3

It was early the next morning when his phone blared and the code showed it was the training center calling him again. With a sigh, he hadn’t even finished his coffee, he picked it up,

“What’s he done now?”

Somebody laughed down the phone.

“What the fuck?”

“Oh Jesus, Fury, you have got to get down here.” 

Nick recognized the voice now, “Martinez, what the fuck are you doing down there?” Martinez had been one of Nick’s agents when he ran them.

“Hibbert’s a drinking buddy of mine and he called me because they’re all too shit-scared of Coulson to call him. What?” Martinez’s voice faded out as she turned away from the phone, “It is damn true, and you know it.” She turned back to the phone, “But godamnit Fury, you need to come down and hear what Barton’s saying. Oh Jesus.” And Martinez was laughing as the phone clicked off.

Nick went via Phil’s office.

“Come on Cheese, your boy is causing consternation again. Want to clue me in?”

Phil shrugged his shoulders. “I expected him to talk, Barton can run his mouth like nobody’s business. But I have no idea what about. Possibly what’s served in the cafeteria?”

Later Nick would kick himself for not making that a bet, but at the time all he said was, “Well whatever it is, it must be good because going by the giggling you’d think Martinez was twelve.”

Phil’s eyebrows went up.

“Exactly.”

 

Hibbert and Martinez were the only two in the control cell of the training center, although there would be a second guard somewhere, presumably with Barton. Martinez was still laughing, she raised one hand in acknowledgment to Nick, but her other hand stayed cupped over her ear, she was obviously listening to the audio by headset. Hibbert was bright red and appeared to be trying to vanish into the wall he was hiding against.

“All right,” said Nick. “What’s so good you had to drag me all the way day down here?” 

He squinted at the viewing screen. It was focused on Barton’s cell, he was sitting crossed-legged at the head of the ratty cot gesturing widely as he spoke to his audience of five junior agents crammed into the tiny cell. Nick closed his eyes for a moment because that was breaking all sorts of operational security rules.

“Just listen,” said Martinez and lent over the audio desk, she pulled out her earpiece and flicked the switch to feed the audio direct to the speakers. Hibbert, looking like he’d rather face a firing squad, redoubled his efforts to fade into the wall.

The speakers crackled, then they could hear Barton saying, “ – and then he bent me over his desk and fucked me til I screamed.”

Nick automatically turned to Phil, to find Phil had turned to him with dark and dangerous eyes.

“Oh no,” said Nick hastily, hands raised, “that was not me.”

But Barton just kept digging Nick’s grave for him. “Then, when I was too fucked out to even move, Fury called in Bainbridge and Maclaren to go at me from both ends until I was so sloppy and dripping with cum I ached with it.” 

Nick hoped Barton would have decency to send flowers to his funeral.

“Fury laughed and said I was probably loose enough now. Bainbridge lay back on the desk and worked himself until he was hard again, then Fury and Maclaren picked me up and dropped me down on Bainbridge’s cock. I was so raw inside everything went grey for a bit and when I came back, Maclaren had shoved me over and was ramming his cock in alongside Bainbridge. I thought they were going to split me in two.”

In their little viewing room, Martinez went off in another peal of laughter. Hibbert looked ready to jump out a window if there had been one handy. Phil was frozen so stiff he was going to snap any minute. 

Barton went right on talking,

“Hill found me there, bruised and sore and covered in cum. She just laughed, hitched up her skirt and made me get her off with my tongue.”

Hibbert squirmed miserably, “It’s not true, is it?”

“Jesus H Christ, of course it’s not true,” exploded Nick, “the senior staff do not take advantage of the junior agents.”

Martinez was laughing so hard she was about to choke, “I don’t know, I could tell you some stories that would make your hair curl.”

“Shut up.” Nick growled and went for her call sign in an attempt to regain authority. “Lobo, you are not helping, so just pipe down.”

“Ohhh, out come the pet names.”

Nick was going to strangle Martinez. He should have remembered the woman didn’t respond to authority any better than any other of Nick’s favorite agents.

On the screen, one of interrogators leaned forward with eager eyes. “What about Coulson?”

Barton’s face scowled, “Coulson? Haven’t seen much of him, thank God. Does he even have a dick?”

Nick winced as the crowd sniggered. Martinez abruptly stopped laughing and started watching Phil with anxious eyes.

Phil didn’t say anything, he just smiled. It wasn’t a smile Nick had seen before, it wasn’t vicious, or darkly amused, or even that quirk of the lips Phil used when he thought he needed to demonstrate emotion, instead it was almost, well, sweet. 

It was disturbing, that’s what it was. Nick shook his head and decided for the sake his own sanity that he must have been seeing things. He tuned back into the interrogation. Barton was now describing an extremely improbable foursome to the delight of his avid listeners.

He sighed heavily, “Can we go now? I need to get some work done before I get called in for the next ridiculous stunt Barton pulls.”

“Yeah you must be exhausted after all that,” Martinez flipped her hand towards the ongoing smut show.

“If I’d done all that, I wouldn’t be exhausted, I’d be dead.”

“Aw everyone knows you’re a badass, sir.”

Nick groaned and rubbed his aching head, she was going to be insufferable for months. “I blame you for this, you know,” he told Phil.

“What?” Phil came out of his distracted haze, blinked twice as he reviewed what had been said while he wasn’t paying attention, and said, “More than happy to take the blame, sir. Now if you excuse me I have things to do.” And with that Phil practically waltzed out the room.

Nick and Martinez exchanged glances. Martinez edged closer to him.

“That was very, very freaky, sir.”

“You said it. Come on let’s get out of here. Hibbert, do something useful and get control of this mess. There are manuals on the shelf, call Sutherland in if you have to, but do something, because seriously, this is embarrassing. And maybe you could try not calling me next time Barton proves to be a harder nut to crack than you were all expecting.”

“Yes sir,” agreed Hibbert miserably, still looking like he was only half a step from fleeing the building.

Nick wondered if he’d have any staff left after Barton was finished with them.


	4. Chapter 4

The next call came way too damn early. Nick groaned and grabbed the phone.

“What the hell?” he demanded.

“Barton,” began an unsteady voice.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s,” he glanced at the clock, “four-thirty in the morning. It can wait til daylight.”

The voice stammered some.

“Get to the point,” snarled Nick, losing all patience.

There was a scuffle, and somebody else grabbed the phone,

“Sir, Barton’s escaped, sir.”

“What the hell is going on down there?”

“Uh, Garver, Acosta and Stepney, they’re unconscious in the cell. We think, that is our assumption is that they were, uh, inspired by Barton’s interrogations and intended to, uh,”

“Sexually assault him.”

“Yes sir.”

Nick closed his eyes, “How sure are we about this?”

“Donovan’s told us they asked him to join in. He swears he told them not to be so fucking stupid and never believed they’d actually do it.”

Nick punched his pillow twice because if he broke his hand punching a wall again Phil was never going to let him live it down. He was outraged that his people had even considered that to be appropriate behavior, and at the same time he could not believe his people were so fucking stupid. Barton had been all but singing ‘Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly,” and they fell for it.

And ignoring all of that, how could they not realize that Phil would react extremely badly. Oh shit, Phil.

“I want all three of them off-base immediately.”

“Sir?”

“Before Coulson finds out and decides to finish the job Barton started.”

“Yes sir. What about Barton, sir.”

Barton was going to be two states away by now and Nick was going to lose one of the best assets to come his way in years.

“Call Coulson, set up a strategy meeting in ten.”

 

When he arrived at the meeting though, Nick was able to relax because Phil was too obviously proud and pleased to even do a very good job of being angry – although he clearly was angry and would be making a number of people’s lives a misery when he got around to it. Right at the moment though, Phil was busy enjoying rubbing their noses in Barton’s success and his lack of worry suggested the situation was still retrievable.

“Alright,” Nick smacked his hands together, “let’s try and salvage something from this clusterfuck. We’ll start from the beginning. Sutherland, what do we have on camera?”

Sutherland side-eyed Phil and edged a couple of steps further away.

Nick sighed, “Don’t tell me, there is no camera.”

Sutherland scowled at his deputy, “Don’t just stand there Messina, give the director your report.”

Messina, looking like he was seriously considering going for a Klingon promotion and stabbing Sutherland where he stood, said,

“Garver was a senior training agent, he had access to both the regular cameras and audio, and the secure backups. He killed all of them, and from the notes in the log book was going to blame it on a power cut.”

Before Nick could explain exactly how very undelighted he was to hear that, there was a knock at the conference room door and someone caught the door with their elbow as they struggled with a tray of coffees and muffins. Nick waved them in impatiently and wondered if it was Sutherland or Messina who had decided to go with blatant bribery.

The man walked in, eyes fixed on the wobbly tray, face shadowed by a STRIKE team ball cap. Nick would like to claim he saw something familiar in the set of the bulky shoulders, but actually it was Phil’s happy little hum that made him do a double-take and recognize Barton, just as Barton dumped his tray on the table and pulled a gun.

“Alright then,” Barton smiled meanly as he shifted to cover them all with the gun, “somebody start talking and convince me not to kill you all.”

In order to decide how worried he should be, Nick checked on Phil, and as he was unconcernedly flipping open his briefcase, Nick figured he could step back and let Barton enjoy himself.

“Anybody?” demanded Barton. “Because I when I got out your little torture chamber set-up and realized I was in SHIELD headquarters, man,” he shook his head.

Nick winced.

“I tell you,” Barton continued, “I was so fucking embarrassed. I thought I’d signed up with a legit outfit, you should have been able to keep hold of me for at least a week.”

“It’s dispiriting I know,” agreed Phil. “I did tell them you were an unsuitable subject for their tests.”

“You did?” Barton appeared marginally happier about that.

“Sure.” Phil held up a thick file of paper, “Extensively memo’d. You want a look?”

“I trust you.”

Phil beamed and let the file thump down on the table. “You might want somebody to take a look at them, Director.”

“Indeed,” said Nick. He hadn’t realized how lengthy Phil’s battle with the training department had been, no wonder Phil was out for blood.

“And I would be grateful if you could give me my winnings.”

The recipient of several blank stares, Phil just blinked innocently and continued,

“That was the bet, wasn’t it? That Clint would surpass all previous trainees? He didn’t beat my record but is anybody seriously going to argue he hasn’t surpassed all previous contenders?”

Nick – because he wasn’t a total fool – had been prepared; he reached into the pocket of his coat, pulled out an envelope thick with cash and handed it over. Phil split the wad of cash and held out half to Barton, who dumped the gun on the table and accepted the money.

“Wait,” said Sutherland, “he failed. He scored worst of all.”

Phil sighed heavily, “Are you really arguing that escaping from the training center wasn’t a better performance than being stubborn for a month to tick a box?” He turned to Nick, “Are we done here, sir? Barton owes me breakfast.”

“He hasn’t escaped yet,” said Sutherland. And like every bad cliché of attacking after you’d tapped out, he grabbed the gun and pointed it at Barton, “Not so cocky now huh. Back to the cells. This time we won’t go so easy on you.”

“Are you going to laugh manically and twirl your moustache? Because that’s not a good look.” Barton asked with earnest concern.

Sutherland growled, and that was when Phil grabbed his gun arm, spun him around and threw him to the floor. He landed with crash and in the sudden stillness afterwards there was a very audible crack as his arm broke.

“Oops,” Phil sounded as apologetic as a very unapologetic person.

“Hey,” said Barton, “he could have shot me.”

“If you gave up a loaded gun you would have deserved to get shot,” said Phil, and they grinned at each other in happy understanding.

“Alright enough,” Nick glowered at the room in general. It was time to take control of the circus. “Phil wins his bet. Barton did better than any previous trainee - you didn’t lay a finger on him before he was talking you round, he kept your attention off what mattered to him, conned his way into a position where he could fight his way out and succeeded. If that’s not sufficient to win ‘Best Person to be Captured With’ I don’t know what is.”

Nobody said anything except Sutherland who whimpered.

“So stop causing trouble you two and get out of here.”

“Sir, yes sir,” said Phil. The smug fucker saluted too. Nick was assigning him the nastiest, dirtiest mission he could find, if there wasn’t a reason to have to crawl through the sewers in Rio, he was going to invent one.

As the two of them started to amble away, Barton split the pile of bills in his hands and offered half back to Phil,

“There you are, sir.”

“Oh no,” Phil disclaimed. “You won the bet for me, the profit is yours.”

“You fronted the money, you get half the profit. But you’re buying me breakfast.”

Phil thought about that for a second, then nodded firmly, “Deal.”

“Deal.”

And they walked out the door together in perfect deadly accord. If Nick wasn’t Phil’s best friend he’d be feeling scared about now.


End file.
